Substance Abuse Seminar Produces Ideas, Challenges

March 03, 1986|by CHUCK AYERS, The Morning Call

Friday was an end and a beginning for about 80 people attending a five-day drug and alcohol intervention program in Milford Township.

The workshop concluded its final day in the AM Cable Co. offices off Route 663 in Milford Square, but for the clergymen, social workers, school officials, police and parents who went to it, the real work is about to begin.

Those attending the program, sponsored by Quakertown Community Hospital and Burger King Family Restaurants, walked away with an agenda that includes stepped-up efforts at identifying people with drug- and alcohol-related problems and a better idea how they can receive help.

Nicholas Brogno, a counselor with the Bangor Area School District, took all of last week to attend the program because he said he sees the need for schools to adopt aggressive programs to identify and help drug- and alcohol- dependent students.

"The way I see this as being important is making us more aware this is not just a school problem. If it's treated as just a school problem, there is no way the problem will ever improve. It's a community problem needing a community solution," he said.

Because teachers and administrators are in contact with students almost eight hours a day, five days a week, Brogno said he feels schools are perhaps in the best position to detect substance abuse.

However, he touched on a problem area when he said it is necessary for schools to provide continuing care for students entered into a treatment program.

"Now, the mental health system is not referring (information) back to the schools so the schools can't follow up. And yet it's the schools who have the kids the greater part of the day," said the counselor, who is active in the district's drug and alcohol task force.

"Districts should not refer students to agencies that will not provide what the schools need to follow up for after-care plans," he said.

Clergy, too, will play a front-line role in referral into the care network, said the Rev. Michael Iski, pastor of St. Paul's United Church of Christ in Allentown.

One of three clerics at the seminar, he said, "The clergy's main function is education and awareness."

The three-fold process includes education within a particular church's congregation, an outreach program into the surrounding community and an ongoing educational process for clergy on how to effectively network with the proper social agencies.

"Clergymen have a community position because of who they are. Because of that, they have the responsibility and obligation to effect positive change. Clergy, in my opinion, is the first-line defense," Iski said.

On the input side, he noted it is essential for substance-users to be guided to the agencies that can treat the problem. But because the problem rarely just disappears for users, he said it was essential also for clergy to be waiting at the other end of the network when the treatment has been completed.

Their role, then, he said, "is to provide spiritual and emotional support."

Quakertown Police Chief James McFadden said that while the program made him and Juvenile Officer Timothy Gaumer more aware of the available treatments, the idea of networking with other area police departments would be perhaps the single most important step toward identifying problem chemical users.

"The law enforcement community needs more exchange of information between agencies," McFadden said.

"I could cite a kid in Quakertown who the week before was cited in Perkasie, who the week before was cited in Sellersville, who the week before was cited in Dublin," he said.

"Without the exchange of information, nobody in any of the respective departments has a clear-cut idea that this person may have a problem," he said.

"Currently, I get more information on criminal activity in the newspapers than I do from other police departments."